Santa and Choo-Choos, A New Tradition

We decided to start a new tradition in our holiday lineup of things to do in December, by riding the Santa Train in Boulder City!  Of all the years we've lived in Henderson, neither Jason or I had ever ridden the Boulder City train, so this was a first for us all.  Since Aunt Denise and Uncle Georges were in town for the holidays, we invited them and my Mom to join us for the afternoon.  Nolan was excited to finally bust out of the house after being sick for over a week, so it was pretty exciting to him that we were going to ride a Choo-choo and even meet Santa on it!

When we got to the train station, we arrived right at boarding time so we hopped on the train and got a table in the dining car.  Nolan was hesitant at first and had to check everything out thoroughly, and wasn't quite sure what we were doing sitting down, waiting for the train to start.  The train was decorated in lots of holiday cheer, and Nolan liked to wave his ticket in the air, ready to start moving!

Once we started moving, he thought it was amazing!  I think he was in disbelief that he was on an actual Choo-choo!  He enjoyed a little snack and some water while we waited for Santa to make his appearance, and he liked watching out the window as we slowly rode by.  

Since we were in one of the end cars, Santa ended up starting off in our section, so as soon as we took off, he made his grand entrance!  Nolan had his eye on him the entire time until he came to our table, and was so happy to see him, he gave him a big hug and then Santa picked him up for a photo-op (which made for some really awkward photos).  Of course, even though Nolan loved Santa, he became super shy (just like in Disneyland with the characters), and froze while Santa held him and talked to him.  The second he said Bye and left, Nolan asked for him right away!  Crazy kid, hopefully next year he will interact a little more with the Big Guy!

Afterwards, we continued to ride through Boulder City, while Nolan finished his pretzel snack and enjoyed dancing to the Christmas music playing over the speakers.  We let him walk around in our section and he enjoyed sitting from our table to Aunt Denise's and climbing up and down on the chairs, as well as doing little dances in the aisle.  I'd say his first train ride was a success!  

Once the train returned to the station, we walked around and checked out some big trains parked outside.  Nolan loved looking at them and was surprised at how big they were in person!  We made our way over to the Train Museum and this was ah.may.zing for Nolan to look at- he was amazed at all the moving trains and sounds.  I instantly wanted to get him one for our Christmas tree... but then realized he would probably destroy it this year, so we'll wait until he's a little older!  He loved checking out each set and even got to play with his own trains in the kids section.

Our day at the Santa Train was such a fun experience and we will gladly do this every year as a new tradition!  To top it off, we ended our afternoon with lunch at Pit Stop... which, of course, was delicious!  We can't wait to go back during the warmer months just to ride the train again for fun!  

Baby #2 Bump Watch: 18 Weeks

How far along? 18 weeks, 1 days

Total weight gain: Based on my last appointment weigh-in, I'm up 7 pounds!  Whoa!
Maternity clothes? Leggings all.the.time.  Belly band has made it's appearance and I'm rocking the tight shirts since we've got a little bump going on now, no more bloat!
Stretch marks? Nothing yet!
Sleep:  So far, so good!  Sleeping mostly on my right side, which is opposite of Nolan's pregnancy where I preferred the left.
Best moment this week: Last week we spent our time in Disneyland and had our gender reveal... so that was by far the best of the whole month!
Miss Anything? Hot dogs and Port of Subs.  Which is so strange because I rarely ate either before being pregnant, but the second I get knocked up, it's what I want! 
Movement: Starting to feel more confident that the bubbly "gas" feeling I've been having isn't as much gas as it is this little lady moving around and giving me tiny flutters!  Yippee!
Food cravings: Milk always sounds so amazing, but it doesn't sit well with me so I can't drink too much of it.  If I could, I would drink it constantly!
Anything making you queasy or sick: Nothing as of lately.
Gender prediction: We finally know.... It's a GIRL!!  YAAAAAAAAY!
Symptoms: Lots of round ligament pain, since I'm starting to get a little bigger.  I guarantee I'll be "popping" in the next couple of weeks because I've felt a ton of stretching lately.  Still pretty tired all the time, but I do have a little bit more energy now that we're moving our way deeper into the second trimester!
Belly Button in or out? It's already out.  Ugh.
Looking forward to: Getting to feel little Miss move around more and more.  Can't wait to be able to see and feel her kick on the outside.  Christmas is coming up, so we're excited to celebrate with family and watch Nolan have an amazing holiday, which I know he'll be super giddy about opening gifts this year!  We just ordered her nursery furniture, so we're excited to start setting that up and begin planning the nursery and all things GIRL!  And soon enough, we'll be hitting the halfway mark!  Can't believe it!

Disneyland, Day Three!

Our last day of Disneyland was made up of catching all the things we didn't quite get to the previous two days, or revisiting things we loved if we had enough time.  We started up again bright and early, right after the park opened around 8:30AM, and headed straight for Tomorrowland, because Nolan had been dying to go on Astro Orbitor since the first time he saw it.  We knew the wait wouldn't be very long since it was early in the morning, so we headed over.  We had a quick 5 minute wait, where Nolan was super excited to finally be riding!  He kept squealing with excitement and saying "Rocket!"

Once it was our turn, we squeezed all three of us in one ship, and took a selfie before our blastoff.  Nolan loved going up and down and around, but my prego-self had to look straight ahead, because all that spinning was a little much for me!  It was fun, but we were surprised how fast it went!  Nolan loved it and asked to go on again and again, but we told him Dumbo would be way more fun!  So off we went!

We went back to Fantasyland and rode Dumbo since the wait was minimal in the morning, and Nolan definitely loved this ride a ton, too.  The view from the top was perfect and something about Fantasyland just makes you feel giddy!  We rode a few more of our favorites in Fantasyland, and headed over to Pirates of the Caribbean, which Nolan also loved, especially the parts with the doggies and the cannonballs splashing!  Afterwards, we headed towards Winnie the Pooh to ride yet again since this was one of Nolan's favs.  He helped himself to some of Pooh's honey pots while we waited in line for a quick three minutes, and off we went to giggle through Pooh's Adventures!

We made our way back up to Toon Town to visit with some characters we had yet to meet on our trip, and although we had just missed Goofy, we did get to play one on one with Pluto right as he came out to meet everyone!  Nolan loved this and instantly ran up to him, I think asking Pluto to pick him up!  Instead, they played a game of tag and chased each other around, which was the cutest thing ever!  We said "Bye" to Toon Town after playing for a bit, and headed over to Disney California Adventure to finish out our day. 

While in Disney California, we booked it to Paradise Garden Grill to meet Donald (one of Nolan's favorites) but the line was seriously 30+ minutes long, and Nolan was slowly becoming "over it" with the whole theme park and waiting game.  We watched Donald for about five minutes and gave him lots of waves, and then headed over to ride Little Mermaid.  Nolan lost his cool on this ride, being overtired, hungry and ready to leave... so we decided to just grab some quick lunch and head home.  We ended up eating at Boardwalk Pizza, where we ate outside and watched the Viva Navidad Parade, which also starred Donald Duck, so Nolan was excited about that.  He waved to him lots and even got to wave to Mickey and Minnie again.  We made our way out of the park, and said "Bye for now!" to Disney.  As soon as he hit the carseat, he was literally out for the count within minutes!  He slept for 2.5 hours on the ride home, and did great again on another road trip.

We had the BEST time and couldn't have asked for a better trip.  Nolan did extremely well for 3 days in the park, and even though he was a bit tired and cranky towards the end, I know he had a fabulous time and really had a lot of fun.  Even though many people say taking kids so young to Disneyland is a waste because they won't remember anything, I truly believe Nolan had an absolute blast and his mind was blown by meeting all of his favorite characters, riding fun rides and seeing so many amazing new things.  We captured so many great memories for him to look back on, celebrated during the holiday season and enjoyed the amazing decor, and to be able to say we did our gender reveal in Disneyland is something we could have literally only dreamed of, and it actually happened!  I would do it all again in a heartbeat, and wish we could go back more times in one year... but until next time, we have some amazing memories to be thankful for and can't wait to make this a family tradition every few years!